Cook is openly gay. This puts him in danger of being jailed in India, where gay sex is a crime.

Amidst the fanfare of meeting and greeting Silicon Valley’s tech titans on his most recent visit to the US, Narendra Modi had much to be buoyant about. The ministry of external affairs reported that the prime minister had a one-on-one meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who, like Modi, also figures on Forbes magazine’s World’s Most Powerful People and Time’s 100 Most Influential People lists.

More to the point, Cook leads a mammoth revenue-generating operation ($182.7 billion as of 2014) and personally oversaw Apple’s courting of Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn to manufacture Macintoshes and iPhones in locales as far flung as China’s Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces.

Not one to be left behind, the prime minister personally invited Cook to set up manufacturing facilities in India in line with the government’s “Make in India” policy, and even mooted the prospect of the company’s mobile payment service, Apple Pay, being integrated into the Jan Dhan Yojana scheme.

“Cook responded positively,” MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup noted. “I think India does fit into his long-term plans.” Cook went as far as to recall his late boss Steve Jobs’ spiritual visit to India in the 1970s, thus giving the country “a very special place in the heart of every Apple employee”.

Turning a blind eye

Still, the grand affair at San Jose’s Fairmont Hotel could hardly ignore the white elephant in the room that has so far typified Cook’s leadership style at Apple: his activism.

In October 2014, mere months before the US Supreme Court’s nationwide legalisation of same-sex marriage, Cook took to Bloomberg Businessweek to announce his support for gay rights efforts, and to make public his own sexuality. He wrote:

“I’m proud to be gay and I consider [it] among the greatest gifts God has given me… if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy… The company I am so fortunate to lead has long advocated for human rights and equality for all… We’ll continue to fight for our values… I will personally continue to advocate for equality for all people until my toes point up."

How this position played out in Cook’s meeting with the prime minister, if at all, is not known. What is known is that the view on homosexuality held by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party could see men like Cook sent to prison were he to visit India.

Responding to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2013, the BJP’s erstwhile party president Rajnath Singh plainly supported the criminalisation of gay sex. “We will state that we support Section 377 because we believe that homosexuality is an unnatural act and cannot be supported,” he said. More recently, party firebrand Subramanian Swamy went as far to suggest that homosexuality was a “genetic disorder” affecting only “handicapped persons”.

A clear position

Though the prime minister has kept mum on the matter, his government’s actions both at home and abroad could not be more clear. On the home front, there is the government’s implicit acknowledgement of the status quo, wherein the Supreme Court has placed the responsibility for repealing the law in the hands of parliament. Further afield, India joined Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia earlier this year, voting in favour of a failed United Nations’ General Assembly draft resolution to cut employee benefits for UN staff with same-sex partners.

As it turns out, Cook is not alone. Both in and out of Silicon Valley, he is far from being the only openly gay chief executive. The list also includes Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and Burberry chief Christopher Bailey, amongst others. For Apple’s part, the company has long taken it upon itself to champion causes on its executives’ and customers’ minds – everything from worker rights and working conditions in Chinese factories to same-sex marriage, renewable energy pushes, and scholarships for racial minorities in the US. Simply put, Cook made clear that Apple was committed to “advancing humanity”.

On a more personal note, Cook noted that he too had “seen, and [had] experienced [discrimination]… rooted in a fear of people that were different from the majority”. For Modi, rationalising his government’s treatment of Indian LGBT people and his fêting of foreign gay people in Silicon Valley will soon get difficult to explain.

The right machine can save water, power consumption, time, energy and your clothes from damage.

In 2010, Han Rosling, a Swedish statistician, convinced a room full of people that the washing machine was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution. In the TED talk delivered by him, he illuminates how the washing machine freed women from doing hours of labour intensive laundry, giving them the time to read books and eventually join the labour force. Rosling’s argument rings true even today as it is difficult to deny the significance of the washing machine in our everyday lives.

For many households, buying a washing machine is a sizable investment. Oddly, buyers underestimate the importance of the decision-making process while buying one and don’t research the purchase as much as they would for a television or refrigerator. Most buyers limit their buying criteria to type, size and price of the washing machine.

Visible technological advancements can be seen all around us, making it fair to expect a lot more from household appliances, especially washing machines. Here are a few features to expect and look out for before investing in a washing machine:

Cover your basics

Do you wash your towels every day? How frequently do you do your laundry? Are you okay with a bit of manual intervention during the wash cycle? These questions will help filter the basic type of washing machine you need. The semi-automatics require manual intervention to move clothes from the washing tub to the drying tub and are priced lower than a fully-automatic. A fully-automatic comes in two types: front load and top load. Front loading machines use less water by rotating the inner drum and using gravity to move the clothes through water.

Simple steps to get the best from your washing machineSimple steps to get the best from your washing machineSimple steps to get the best from your washing machine

Size matters

The size or the capacity of the machine is directly proportional to the consumption of electricity. The right machine capacity depends on the daily requirement of the household. For instance, for couples or individuals, a 6kg capacity would be adequate whereas a family of four might need an 8 kg or bigger capacity for their laundry needs. This is an important factor to consider since the wrong decision can consume an unnecessary amount of electricity.

Machine intelligence that helps save time

In situations when time works against you and your laundry, features of a well-designed washing machine can come to rescue. There are programmes for urgent laundry needs that provide clean laundry in a super quick 15 to 30 minutes’ cycle; a time delay feature that can assist you to start the laundry at a desired time etc. Many of these features dispel the notion that longer wash cycles mean cleaner clothes. In fact, some washing machines come with pre-activated wash cycles that offer shortest wash cycles across all programmes without compromising on cleanliness.

The green quotient

Despite the conveniences washing machines offer, many of them also consume a substantial amount of electricity and water. By paying close attention to performance features, it’s possible to find washing machines that use less water and energy. For example, there are machines which can adjust the levels of water used based on the size of the load. The reduced water usage, in turn, helps reduce the usage of electricity. Further, machines that promise a silent, no-vibration wash don’t just reduce noise – they are also more efficient as they are designed to work with less friction, thus reducing the energy consumed.

Customisable washing modes

Crushed dresses, out-of-shape shirts and shrunken sweaters are stuff of laundry nightmares. Most of us would rather take out the time to hand wash our expensive items of clothing rather than trusting the washing machine. To get the dirt out of clothes, washing machines use speed to first agitate the clothes and spin the water out of them, a process that takes a toll on the fabric. Fortunately, advanced machines come equipped with washing modes that control speed and water temperature depending on the fabric. While jeans and towels can endure a high-speed tumble and spin action, delicate fabrics like silk need a gentler wash at low speeds. Some machines also have a monsoon mode. This is an India specific mode that gives clothes a hot rinse and spin to reduce drying time during monsoons. A super clean mode will use hot water to clean the clothes deeply.

Washing machines have come a long way, from a wooden drum powered by motor to high-tech machines that come equipped with automatic washing modes. Bosch washing machines include all the above-mentioned features and provide damage free laundry in an energy efficient way. With 32 different washing modes, Bosch washing machines can create custom wash cycles for different types of laundry, be it lightly soiled linens, or stained woollens. The ActiveWater feature in Bosch washing machines senses the laundry load and optimises the usage of water and electricity. Its EcoSilentDrive motor draws energy from a permanent magnet, thereby saving energy and giving a silent wash. The fear of expensive clothes being wringed to shapelessness in a washing machine is a common one. The video below explains how Bosch’s unique VarioDrumTM technology achieves damage free laundry.